Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of –1% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,262 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.3% across 2,266 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks these days are mostly in experimental markets for us).
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. We use Movelor heavily to make college football picks. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use FPI heavily to make NFL futures picks, but not spreads and totals.
We’ve got college basketball, we’ve got a bowl game, and we’ve got the NFL, and our college football futures are back on their daily schedule. Here’s the context on each market for us.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 21–23. We’re down 4.03 units, and we’re 1–10 over our last ten. It is bleak.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 17–25–8, and we’re down 9.76 units. It is also bleak.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 75–80–3. We’re down 10.23 units. Again, bleak. We have been bad all over the place this autumn.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We’re down about 22 units so far, but we have upside remaining. More importantly: All of the bets we list here grade out as positive-value bets unless we explicitly mark them as a hedge. So, if you’ve been faithfully following, we’re still on track to not lose more than 25% (and we retain upside), but if you’re new, these are a good place to start.
Portland State @ Fresno State
Fresno State’s coming off one bad game (a win, but a bad game), so the seesaw theory would hold that they’d bounce back tonight. Portland State has only beaten one Division I team in the last month. We’ll take the guys at home.
Pick: Fresno State –3.5 (–115). Low confidence.
Philadelphia @ Seattle
Our thinking here is that the total could be artificially deflated by Jalen Hurts and Geno Smith’s questionable status. Even if they don’t play, both these defenses have had issues lately.
Pick: Over 45 (–110). Low confidence.
Western Kentucky vs. Old Dominion
We continue our moneyline underdog strategy on the FBS bowl games. So far, it’s 2–4 and down 1.19 units, but that’s far from conclusive.
Pick: Western Kentucky to win +167. Low confidence.
College Football Playoff National Championship
We lost some ground on the futures front on Saturday with NDSU going down against Montana, and while we still have paths to profitability, it was a limiting scenario. We’re trying to build our way back, and that likely is going to center around fading Washington in various ways. First up, we’re hitting Michigan’s national championship odds again.
There’s some logic behind Alabama being an underdog in the Rose Bowl but the national championship favorite, that logic being partly that Alabama’s fanbase is thought to travel better when games are within driving distance (especially relative to Michigan’s fanbase, and also partly that if Alabama can beat Michigan, they’ll have answered a lot of questions, as they definitely have the higher ceiling than the Wolverines. Still, it’s a little funky, and it makes us like Michigan’s price all the more.
We’ll probably keep pairing this with Alabama to win the Rose Bowl, and expect a lot more Texas action on the Sugar Bowl side as well. Ideally, we can get somewhere close to a 50/50 profit scenario while limiting our worst cases to a 25% loss, keeping our historic worst-case the same. Today: Eight units on the Wolverines to win it all.
Pick: Michigan to win +200. Low confidence. x8
